Degradation analysis of photovoltaic modules under tropical climatic conditions and its impacts on LCOE

Amornrat Limmanee, Sasiwimon Songtrai, Nuttakarn Udomdachanut, Songpakit Kaewniyompanit, Yukinobu Sato, Masaki Nakaishi, Songkiate Kittisontirak, Kobsak Sriprapha and Yukitaka Sakamoto

Renewable Energy, 2017, vol. 102, issue PA, 199-204

Abstract: After 4 years of operation at Thailand Science Park, degradation analysis of 73 photovoltaic (PV) modules of four different PV technologies; multi c-Si, hetero-junction Si, micromorph and CIGS, has been carried out. The degradation rate (DR) of individual modules and array performance are presented. It was found that some micromorph (thin film Si 1) modules seriously degraded and were in failure mode, resulting in a severe degradation of the thin Si 1 array’s performance. The average DR of other PV modules was found to range between 0.3 and 1.9%/year. The standard deviation (SD) of data from modules in the same array indicates the level of mismatch, which plays a role in evaluating array’s performance. The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) in this study was found to range between 4.1 and 14 baht/kWh, depending on PV technology and its DR. The results suggest that, without any reduction of costs, the LCOE of solar PV electricity in Thailand would possibly be comparable with the retail price when the present PV technology has DR of about 0.2%/year or lower. The database we obtained is informative and useful for a further study on PV reliability and cost of solar PV electricity in the tropics.

Keywords: Photovoltaic; Degradation rate; Tropics; Climate effect; LCOE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811630917X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:102:y:2017:i:pa:p:199-204

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.10.052

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().